Musicology Colloquium
Thursday March 12, 2020
2:00-3:30pm
CFA 2100
This talk explores the relationship between trauma and identity by examining Arab music performance on the U.S.–Mexico border. Drawing on the musicking of Syrian and Mexican migrant communities, I interrogate theories of cultural and psychological trauma and borderland epistemologies to explore how border tensions influence the often-fraught views of identity.
Dr. Andrea Shaheen Espinosa is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Oboe at the University of Texas, El Paso, and currently serves as the Musicology Area Coordinator for the Department of Music. She is the founder and director of the UTEP’s internationally recognized Middle Eastern music ensemble, Layali Al-Sham. She is a Fulbright Fellow, a FLAS recipient, and a Medici Scholar, and is currently serving as the UTEP College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Faculty Fellow. Her research focuses on music, migration, and trauma, and her recent publications include articles in The Double Reed, Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, and Yearbook for Traditional Music.
Heterophony: Texture, Technique, and Social Commentary
This lecture is in two parts: the first draws from my research on the 1960s jazz avant-garde and musicians’ interests in heterophonic musical textures. For the second part, I perform original music that utilizes heterophony and “noise” in a solo electronic and improvised format.
The Gay West: From Drug Store Cowboys to Rodeo Queens
The masculine ideal represented by the American cowboy is variously interpreted by spectators, dancers, musicians, and contestants at gay rodeos and country western dances across the U.S. Examining embodied gender practices within these communities, this talk articulates the sonic, social, and geographical spaces of the gay American West.
The Cruelty of Jazz: Toward a Hemispheric Politics of Sound
Rooted in concepts of affect and Empire, this paper argues that jazz operated in various 20th century Latin American settings as a vital touchstone bearing the risks and benefits of urban modernization, hemispheric geopolitics, and transnational cultural production, “cruelly” echoing the United States’ cultural, political, and economic dominance in the hemisphere and beyond.